Mirror - Vol. 37, No. 14 - January 25, 2012

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Week of January 25,20121 vol. 37,iss6
THEirfMlRROR
fairfieldmirror.com
The Independent Student Newspaper
of Fairfield University
The Reflection of Fairfield
Off-Campus Crime Continues for Beach Residents
BY MAGGIE ANDREW
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
New semester, same old
problems.
Students who live at the
beach are all too familiar with the
reports of break-ins and thefts that
accompany the return from break.
The empty beach houses vacated
by home-bound students were
the scenes of some of the most
costly burglaries last semester, with
multiple televisions and printers
reported as stolen over the Thanks-giving
holiday.
While students were not the
victims of the most recent break-ins,
the reports will come as a dis-appointment
to those who hoped
to leave last semester's off-campus
crime trend in the past.
Fairfield students were back
on campus for only a matter of
hours before reports surfaced
about car break-ins and thefts in
town. Six calls were placed to the
police early Tuesday morning,
according to the Fairfield Citizen
Online.
Three callers reported
smashed car windows on Wheeler
Park Avenue and Adley Road, while
$120 was taken from another un-locked
car on Wheeler Road.
Godfrey Road and Harvester
Road residents reported footprints
in the snow circling the cars in
the neighborhood, adding to the
mystery of these recent crimes that
have gone without suspects.
While the reports of crimes in
town are concerning for some stu-dents,
the Director of Public Safety
Todd Pelazza says that the there
has not been any increase in thefts
or break-ins on campus. Public
Safety does not patrol off-campus
housing, but Pelazza says, "DPS
is able and willing to meet with
residents to increase their aware-ness
of crime prevention and how
to better protect themselves and
their belongings."
And some beach residents
may want to take note of Pelazza's
offer. Besides the burglaries that
occurred over Thanksgiving, break-ins
with students present in the
house have posed a more serious
and alarming issue. A Sacred Heart
student was in his beach house on
Dec. 7 when two intruders tied him
up and beat him, and the same
Photo Illustration by Tom McKiver/The Mirror
It has been reported that students' cars are also being broken into at the Fairfield Beach Area.
night another burglary occurred in The car break-ins reported semester's most violent break-in
a nearby house while the female last Tuesday occurred five miles
student occupants were upstairs. from the Reef Road location of last BEACH I PAGE 3
RecPlex Expansion IsA Definite Possibility
BY NICOLETTA RICHARDSON
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
There are 49 cardio machines,
over 8,000 pounds of free weights
and about 15 pieces of strength
training equipment occupying the
RecPlex at Fairfield University. But
those numbers may increase heav-ily
in the near future.
Currently, the school wishes
to construct an 11,000 square-foot
addition to the 32-year-old
Recreational Complex, adding a
second floor to house even more
exercise equipment and space for
over 4,500 students, according to
attorney John Fallon.
"I actually went for the first
time about a week ago and almost
all the machines were taken", said
Brian Gilligan, class of 2014."A big-ger
space would be great, and [one
of] the weight room[s] shouldn't
Mikaela Tierney/The Mirror
Older machines at the RecPlex make the prospect of an addition exciting for some.
be [a] tiny box. Once the RecPlex is
redone, I feel like I will be moti-vated
to stay on campus and go to
our gym more often."
Renovations to the lobby,
locker rooms, cardio-fitness
workout area and weight rooms
would take place, in addition to an
increase in security appearance.
There is also a plan to build a new
jogging track along the perimeter
of the field house.
At this time, the two fitness
centers on campus are the Quick
Recreation Complex and the Walsh
Athletic Center, the latter of which
is strictly for athletes participating
in Fairfield University sports.
When asked to compare the
Athletic Center with the RecPlex,
field hockey member Shealyn Testa
'14 mentioned the few times she
has actually been to the RecPlex.
"The RecPlex does have more
activities to utilize, such as the
racquetball and more variety of
machines,"she said.
However, she added, "the in-terior
and equipment seem a little
outdated, and it seems very tightly
put together", citing the small place
as a source of discomfort when
working out at the RecPlex.
The Walsh Athletic Center was
built in 1995 and had renovations
done in 1998, adding an academic
center for the varsity athletes,
weight and fitness rooms, a prac-tice
basketball court and athletic
offices. The RecPlex was built in
1979. The last time renovations
took place remains unknown.
A committee that includes
RECPLEX I MQE 3
The Internet Will
Remain Uncensored
Virtual Protests to Internet Censorship
Bills Cause Indefinite Postponement in Senate
BY MARTIN O'SULLIVAN
NEWS EDITOR
Notice: this article has been
found in violation of H.R. 3261,
SOPA. and therefore access has
been denied.
Had the Stop Online Piracy
Act (SOPA) been passed, messag-es
like these would be replacing
your frequented Internet destina-tions
for streaming, downloading
and viewing.
Although SOPA has since
been scrapped, the senate version
of this bill, S. 968 PIPA, is still in
the process of being voted upon,
though temporarily postponed.
These highly debated bills
would essentially allow the gov-ernment
to shut down access to
web sites that contained pirated
content without a traditional trial,
according to the Huffington Post.
"The fact of the matter is that
the backers of SOPA and PIPA
really have no idea what they are
talking about," said Sara Pollack
'13. "They have the inclination
that these bills will protect intel-lectual
American property, create
more American jobs, and put an
end to'rogue'sites, but it's just
another example of the abuse of
government power."
So how did SOPA fizzle out?
And why has PIPA been indefi-nitely
postponed?
According to a written state-ment
by Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid, the stalling of this
legislation is "in light of recent of
events." Specifically?
On January 18,2012, online
organizations in opposition to
SOPA and PIPA staged a virtual
protest by"blacking out" their
websites, communicating what
they thought to be the level of
"It's just another
example of the abuse of
government power."
-SaraPollack'13
restriction to which SOPA would
entitle the government.
On blackout day, Wikipedia's
sole accessible page in its English
division read, "For over a decade,
we have spent millions of hours
building the largest encyclopedia
in human history. Right now, the
U.S. Congress is considering leg-islation
that could fatally damage
the free and open internet."
Over 115,000 websites par-ticipated
in the blackout, either
completely blocking access to
content or simply hinting towards
opposition through illustra-tion,
according to the New York
Times. Notable websites included
SOPA! PAGE 5